


between redemption and living

by anothermiracle



Category: Fruits Basket, Fruits Basket - Takaya Natsuki (Manga)
Genre: An AU where the curse breaks a few years too late, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-20
Updated: 2019-08-20
Packaged: 2020-09-19 05:24:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,087
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20325823
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/anothermiracle/pseuds/anothermiracle
Summary: There are moments between redemption and living - start, middle, end; not necessarily in that order.or;The curse doesn’t break in time for Kyo’s confinement. He holds onto hope, breathes- once, twice-Then lets go.





	between redemption and living

**Author's Note:**

> Inspired by a line in sari15's fic, If Only: 
> 
> "This would be a memory he’d polish over and over during the years.”
> 
> Do check it out (:

* * *

_ **1\. redemption** _

It takes two steps to reach out to her.

The autumn wind blows against them, tossing the sheets surrounding them through the air. Her voice trembles through the cloth, and Kyo listens with a breaking heart as she recounts the childish actions she took upon her mother’s death. She chokes on her words, as if them escaping her is a sin, and Kyo scarcely can take it any longer.

His fingers find purchase on her shoulders through the sheet, grasping them gently. She lets out a soft gasp that has his blood thrumming through his veins. He swallows past the lump in his throat.

“I’m sure your mother understood without a doubt,” he murmurs into the blanket. His head leans against what he only assumes to be hers, and he feels her stiffen in his arms.

“D-do you think so?”

He grips her tighter. _Not worth comforting._

“Definitely. Believe me.”

And then, “Say as much as you want. I won’t be disillusioned.”

She falls heavily on his shoulder and grips the blanket between them in her hands. Kyo closes his eyes.

This must be a redemption of some sort, he thinks, a kindness the world has bestowed upon him. The guilt tormenting his heart for years eases some, and for a breath, he thinks she may forgive him.

But as quickly as it arrives, the feeling disappears in a puff of smoke.

* * *

_ **2.** _

Desperation claws at his throat. Talons in his hair pull and swing him against the nearest wall. He chokes out an apology to a sin he did not commit, trembling on the floor, and cowers away from the man who holds the meaning to his existence.

_Putrid. Disgusting. Monster._ A mantra, every day.

The door to his cage slides shut. Footsteps resound outside before fading away. Kyo sits up and cradles his arm against his body. Dazedly he wonders how many days like these it will take for his debt to be repaid.

It is on days like these he remembers Kyoko, blood seeping out of her mouth, eyes dead, speaking words that will sear his soul for years to come. It is on days like these Kyo relaxes into the security that he is only getting what he deserves.

_I’m sorry_, he speaks to no one. _I’m sorry I couldn’t keep your promise._

It must be hysteria that clouds his mind, however, because from one breath to the next, Kyo releases the words he has been dreading to offer for more than three years.

_I’ll take care of her better next time._

* * *

_ **3.** _

_It’s like she does not want me to forget,_ his mind shouts angrily as he eyes the slight girl leaving the room with that damned rat. At the corner of his eye, Kyo sees Shigure scratch his head and look at the roof. With a sigh, the man walks out of the room without so much of a glance at Kyo.

The nonchalance of the action pierces through Kyo, reminding him of his place among the zodiacs. Even worse, it reminds him of the child he is being - the lack of growth he has shown since then.

Her voice continues to echo in him. _Remember our promise,_ it mocks. _Don’t forget._

A scoff leaves his mouth as he makes his way downstairs, ready to banish the girl from his life within the shortest goddamned notice.

If this is how Kyoko is going to play, he sure as hell wants out of the game.

* * *

_ **4.** _

Her fingers brush against his ears. In the quiet of dawn, it is only the two of them that exist in a field of dew-stained grass. He is perched on her knees, paws draped over her thighs. She calls out his name once, her voice soft in the early morning.

Sunlight peeks past his eyelids, but he is nary a care as she picks him up along with his discarded clothes and cradles him to her chest. Belatedly, he zeroes in on the memory of her lonesome form he’d seen through the window of her childhood home, and marvels at how she has somehow navigated her way here; where remption lays, where loneliness ends, where _together_ begins.

Kyo doesn’t believe in miracles. Still doesn’t.

But hell if the girl; whose hands cup against a body he loathes, whose entire being trembled as it held onto him, whose words brought him out of darkness into a new dawn; isn’t going to help him try.

* * *

_ **5.** _

It is easy to forget when they sit together like this. They talk about the mundane - _you don’t know how to swim?_ \- and tease at the other’s expense - _you haven’t learnt how to **breathe**? _They laugh and the warmth in Kyo’s chest swells.

It is simple, so simple, to be with her. With every word, she reminds him of the life worth living, hinting at a future beautiful and ideal. Kyo cherishes what he can get, hope still balancing on the pinpoint of a deal made seemingly eons ago that he may someday emerge victorious in.

Shishou returns soon after, a fond smile on his face that Kyo is minutely embarrassed by while Tohru stands at the side with a smile reminiscent of when Shishou bested him before calling him ‘son’. Kyo gathers all these smiles, goes home and burnishes them. He uses them as fuel to stoke a fire to spur him towards living-

-however futile it may be.

* * *

_ **6.** _

“-till death,” Akito tells him.

* * *

_ **7.** _

Vaguely, he wonders if this is what Yuki went through in his childhood. At the thought, his stomach churns, bile rising up his throat. Misery seeks company, but not like _this_. The thought of a child - barring one he has resented his whole life- going through the same torment as this is absolutely insane.

Renewed hate for Akito ignites in Kyo, but with no outlet, it stews and simmers, and eventually dies. There is no room for hate. There is no room for anyone either. Only Akito. His worth is Akito.

Picking apart his memories, he begins to forget. What was the walk back to Shigure’s house like? Were there flowers that grew on the sidewalk? He would’ve picked them for her. He should have.

How did Tohru call his name? What was the exact cadence of her voice? Does she remember him? Does she wish to see him? Does she miss him?

Closing his eyes, he lets himself indulge in a memory of her.

They sit on the roof of Shigure’s house under a blanket of stars, her warmth next to him. She turns to him, distant city lights casting shadows on her face. Her eyes crinkle and Kyo reaches up to poke at the dimples indenting her cheeks. She giggles in response and Kyo laughs along, brushing her fringe from her forehead and leaning in-

The door slides open with a loud bang.

Choking on reality, Kyo gasps for breath, trying- and failing to return. His fingers search for the comforting roughness of roof tiles, but all that greets him is the scratch of cold tatami against his nails.

He looks up, vision blurry, as a kimono-clad figure walks through the door.

“Hello, monster,” Akito calls. “How is my favourite creature today?”

* * *

_ **8.** _

The walk home is potent with silence, their footsteps the only sounds amidst bouts of shuffling, catching-up, turning around to check on the other. Kyo glances at Tohru for the umpteenth time, only to immediately swing back around after finding that her face is entirely flushed. His own cheeks heat in response.

In the heat of the moment, he didn’t think- _couldn’t_ think of how she might have felt when he leaned his head on her shoulder. All he knew was that she was waiting for him while he was being an idiot. And Yuki was right; he made her worry.

Now as they awkwardly attempt to have a very normal walk back to Shigure’s house, Kyo can’t help but groan at the audacity he had to do something like that to a poor innocent girl like Tohru. Is he a pervert? _God_. What was he _thinking_?

Suddenly, a soft giggle sounds from behind him. Kyo’s hand falls from his head-when did it get there? -and turns to look at Tohru. A little clenched fist balances over her lips where an amused smile plays at. Tohru glances up at him, cheeks still flushed, before her gaze shyly retreats again.

Kyo feels his lips purse into an annoyed pout.

“What’s so funny,” he grumbles under his breath.

Tohru giggles again. “Nothing, Kyo-kun. You just look so distressed over what is probably a small matter.” She smiles sweetly at him, hand falling to grasp the straps of her bag.

“Back in the classroom,” her eyes avert away for a moment, “I-I didn’t mind. It was sweet of you to think of me.”

Kyo slams a hand against the wall, fingernails trying to find purchase on the concrete. _Goddammit_, it should be illegal to be that cute. _Fuck_.

His head hangs away from Tohru, missing the probably flustered look on her face, judging by the little shouts of surprise coming from her. Kyo clenches his eyes, before braving a look at her.

_Fuck_, still cute. _Dammit_.

With a huff, his hand leaves the wall to bonk her on the head. His ears are burning. She looks up at him in surprise, eyes wide and questioning.

“It’s nothing,” he says.

Then quieter, “Thanks for waiting for me.”

* * *

_ **9.** _

“I’ll just need to wait for you,” she whispers.

Kyo almost misses it over the sound of the television. He turns in his seat and is greeted by the sight of Tohru crying into a washcloth, tears streaming down her face and onto the tabletop.

“H-hey,” Kyo starts, quickly lumbering over to her side of the table. He begins to take her hands from her face, but she abruptly pulls away. Helplessly, he chokes out a soft, “Don’t cry.”

At this, she seems to sob even more, her knees coming up to bury her face in. Kyo watches her break down, words of comfort drying up in his throat.

He…doesn’t know what to say. He told her a few months before graduation - about the cat’s fate, the bet with Akito - and to his surprise and horror, she told him she already knew. Akito had informed her about everything during his visit to the summer vacation home, fabricating stories of an endless banquet and the zodiacs never leaving his side. It was cruel and strange and absolutely foreign. She didn’t want to believe it then.

But with tomorrow looming, it no longer matters what Tohru thinks. Kyo lost the bet and from tomorrow onwards, he will take up new residence in the Sohma estate, a corner reserved only for him - in the Cat’s room.

Once before, in the days leading up to his mother’s funeral, his father brought him there.

_“This is where you will live to pay for your sins,” he said, dragging Kyo towards the door. “All I need is the head’s approval, and I will be rid of you forever, you filthy scum.”_

Now, ten years on, Kyo lives in one of the warmest households he’s been in, where he lets time pass wastefully, only to have it snatched away by a fate he knows is a long time coming.

Kyo sighs. “It was only a matter of time,” he tells her. “There’s no use crying over something that can’t be changed.”

He feels her grip onto his beads, her fingers slipping under before reaching for his pulse.

“It wasn’t wasted,” she says with finality, determination glinting in her eyes. “Your time outside wasn’t wasted.”

The next day, they send him off at the fringes of the Sohma estate. Tohru holds his hand until the last moment and tangles their fingers tight together. Selfishly, he grips back, closes his eyes and imagines a future that will never be, holds onto hope.

He squeezes once, twice- breathes, then lets go.

* * *

_ **10.** _

He wonders what it will be like to have something like that DVD. Of course, it’ll be nice to have something to record all the quiet moments, all the happy times. But if it plays back things like that, she might not survive the fall.

And he’s afraid- that she won’t let go, that she’ll wait on him forever. Replaying the memories over and over, he’s scared that she won’t let herself forget. It’s one thing for him to be subject to this fate, but a person as bright, as innocent and pure as her, should not be saddled with a burden such as he. The curse was never meant to extend beyond the family, yet he selfishly allowed it to be so.

In a way, there isn’t much he can do at this point. What she said during the play- that awkward interruption, paired with a devastated grimace- he heard it loud and clear. Kyo lies sedately on the floor, arm under his head. This is absolutely not what he wanted. He was supposed to leave from the beginning, a mere sojourner passing through her earth. He didn’t intend for this to happen. He didn’t intend to leave things behind.

He didn’t intend for _her_ to fall in love as well.

* * *

_ **11.** _

It comes like a seabreeze from a distant shore, a memory from a long, long time ago.

Tears fall from his eyes without his consent. They dribble down his cheek, dripping off his unshaven chin. Kyo sits up and looks around.

In an instant, nothing makes sense. Nothing about where he is, why he is here, who he is, makes sense. Why are there walls confining him? What was his purpose here? What held him back from leaving?

Why did he not go to where she was?

Suddenly, the door to the room slides open. Kyo bristles and readies himself, an instinct ingrained in his body. But strangely, he no longer feels fear.

Shigure steps into the room, yukata-clad as Kyo has always remembered him to be, and faces him. He smiles briefly, eyes lacking the pity Kyo is used to seeing from him.

“Hey,” Shigure says.

Stunned, Kyo gives a confused wave.

Shigure laughs. It comes out slightly choked, with a tinge of hysteria. He comes up to Kyo and clamps his hand over Kyo’s shoulder. Shaking him, the tears fall as well.

Kyo looks up at him, cheeks still wet.

_It’s over._

* * *

_ **12.** _

Kyo stands in front of the mirror and gazes at his reflection. He doesn’t know how long he’s been in the Cat’s room, but the beard growing out of the sides of his face betrays the amount of time he’s been alone. Picking up the razor balanced precariously on the edge of the sink, he slowly begins to shave. His fingers stutter in their grip, and Kyo almost cuts himself.

“Do you need help?” Hatori asks, an eye peeking out through the fall of his hair. Absently, Kyo stares at the man a little longer, noticing the lack of pity he has grown accustomed to in his voice.

“N-no.” Kyo looks down and washes the razor for the umpteenth time. “I’m good.”

It’s difficult- witnessing all these changes firsthand. There is so much to say, yet there is nothing to say at all. It seems like they have all come to an agreement without voicing anything, and everyone around him has accepted it, including himself.

Hatori passes him a face towel and Kyo takes it, murmuring a soft noise of gratitude. He wipes his face, before staring at the mirror once more. There is something unrecognizable in his reflection. It’s him, yet it isn’t.

In an instant, Kyo’s gaze is drawn to the beads encircling his left wrist. He slips his fingers under them for a moment, thumb and forefinger playing with one of them. Slowly, finger by finger, he grasps the beads- string and all- in a fist, and pulls.

They drop to the floor like marbles, bouncing once, then rolling away.

And Kyo is already crouched on the ground, sobbing. He curls himself up next to the bathtub, burying his head in his knees. A part of him is waiting for the inevitable, and yet a part of him knows that it will never come and haunt him again.

He’s…free.

Hatori comes down to crouch next to him, and in a rare act of comfort from the man, wraps his arm around Kyo’s head and begins patting his hair. After existing so long without the warmth of another, Kyo clutches onto Hatori’s shirt and cries. In that moment, he grieves for what both of them have lost, and grieves for what both of them have gained. Kyo is lost, and found. Confused, yet so, so secure. He is empty, therefore he is full.

After about ten minutes of full-on sobbing into the shirt of a man whom he has barely spoken more than a few sentences to in his life, Kyo awkwardly removes himself from Hatori’s chest. To his embarrassment, all Hatori does is give him a small smile, cheeks slightly damp, and pats his head once more. Shyly, he scratches the back of his head before moving to stand, Hatori following suit. As he looks around the bathroom, Kyo finds himself at a loss. He has so many questions, but they get lodged in his throat when he attempts to ask.

Hatori must see the look in his eyes because he clasps his shoulder and says, “Ask Honda-kun. She’ll tell you everything.”

* * *

_ **13\. living** _

Kyo can’t wait.

No, of course he can. It’s been years.

It’s been years, that’s why he can’t wait, dammit.

He can’t do this. This is too much. What if she’s forgotten? What if she no longer wants anything to do with him? He did leave her once before- what if she decides she can’t take another person leaving and being left behind again?

And what about _him_? Does he still want to see her? Does he still want her? What about her did he like? What did he use to do with her? What was their life like when they lived together? What if-

A smack sounds across the back of his head. Kyo’s hands immediately go up to cradle his head, only to be met with the annoyed glare of one Yuki Sohma.

“Get it together, you stupid cat,” Yuki bites out. “She’ll be here soon.”

A snarl almost makes it past his throat, but Kyo remembers that…they don’t need to do this anymore.

For a moment, Kyo is baffled by the rivalry manufactured so intently between them. He’s layered hate upon hate on this man before him without even realizing how foreign the idea was in the first place. The anger fizzles out in his chest, and all that’s left is guilt. Guilt of tormenting Yuki since the first time they met, right until the moment before he left. Guilt of pushing the blame onto Yuki every time something upset his seemingly miserable life. Yuki had it hard as well, he knows. He just refused to acknowledge it.

“I’m…sorry,” Kyo tells him, looking up with furrowed brows. The words taste unfamiliar on his tongue. Yuki narrows his eyes at him, before taking a seat adjacent to him in the kotatsu.

He sighs.

“We’ve been terrible to each other, haven’t we?” Yuki starts.

Kyo places his hand back on the table in front of him, finger spreading out before clenching once more. “Yeah, we have.”

“What were we even mad at each other about anyway?”

“I don’t know. I think we were just always being pitched against each other. It pissed me off.”

“Yeah, well. You were being quite an idiot about it too.”

“Hey-“

“Don’t worry,” Yuki puts up his hands in surrender. “I was a pretty big dick to you too.”

Then softer, “I’m sorry.”

At the words, Kyo finds himself being released from a crime he has spent so long believing he had done. He thinks back on what Kyoko said, about not having a designated person to hate and blame, and finally sees the beauty that she was trying to convey. All he needed was an outlet for all the hurt he experienced in his life, and when he realized that there was hope, that there was redemption somewhere, it began to dig him deeper and deeper into a cycle of rehearsed loathing, fashioned it into something so grotesque, Kyo couldn’t recognize it in himself anymore. He couldn’t even recognize _himself_ anymore.

_All the wasted years,_ Kyo briefly laments. But it brings comfort that the bridge between Yuki and him has not been completely burned. Kyo knows who to thank for that.

The front door suddenly slams open and footsteps sound through the hall into the kitchen. In a flurry of brown hair and pink dress, she appears before him, panting heavily and looking straight into his eyes.

His eyes widen. “Tohru-“

Her arms are around him before he has the chance to say anything else. She squeezes him tight, burying her face into his neck. The ends of her hair tickle his jawline, and Kyo feels a dampness against his skin. She shakes in her hold, shifting her face back and forth into the cloth at his shoulder.

Kyo continues to stare in shock at the wall in front of him. The door to the room slides shut quietly, and he realizes that Yuki has left the room.

Slowly, his hand reaches up to the back of her head before sliding down the length of her hair. He repeats the action over and over, his fingers tangling in the soft strands. He combs through her hair, his other hand coming up to rest against her waist. She sobs harder and harder, her words incomprehensible.

“K-kyo-kun,” Tohru whimpers. She clenches a fist in the back his shirt and tightens her grip.

Immediately, something in his chest cracks. Kyo buries his fingers in earnest in her hair, clutching her tightly against him. His arms band around her frame and the tears that were held at bay fall from the corner of his eyes down his nose. He turns his neck and places his lips at her pulse, each beat thrumming through him, signalling to him that she’s here and she’s real.

How many times had he imagined this moment? The smell of her hair, the softness of her skin? No matter how much he polishes every memory of her till they shine, it can never compare to how she feels in his arms right now. The senses that have shut down so long ago from repeated rejection from others in his life, the loss of hope that someone, someday, will hold him like this, like they never want to let go, explode to life and Kyo takes in whatever he can greedily, selfishly, and as much as he wants. He steeps in the luxury of a hug from a girl he cares about most, and soaks in every detail, every sensation he has missed out on in the past few years stolen from his life.

They hold each other a while longer, before slowly separating to look into the other’s eyes. Tohru lifts a hand to Kyo’s cheek, and he leans into it, nosing her palm and brushing his lips across her wrist. She runs a finger repeatedly under his eyes, catching the tears there. Kyo does the same to her, cradling her face gently while brushing her fringe away. They lean their foreheads against each other, broken smiles playing at their lips.

“Kyo-kun,” Tohru calls him.

“Yeah,” he replies, voice cracking.

“I missed you.”

“I-“ inhale, “I missed you too.”

“Kyo-kun,” she calls again.

“Y-yeah.”

She laughs and places a kiss on his forehead. He closes his eyes and grips her tighter. In the deepest corners of his heart, there is a smidge of doubt, an inkling of fear, that rejection will come sooner or later. But when Kyo opens his eyes and sees Tohru smiling through her tears, he is strong, and brave, and fearless, and ready to love and to love and to _love_. Then, she tells him the words that overwrite the pain he’s gone through, that cancel out the unforgiveness he bears within himself, that make him feel stronger than he has ever been before.

“Kyo-kun, look,” she places a hand on his left wrist, leave a kiss there, and smiles.

_“You’re free.”_

* * *


End file.
